On December 27, a little more than two months after her return to Pakistan from years of exile, Benazir Bhutto was killed while leaving the grounds of Liaquat Bagh after addressing a rally of party faithfuls. Daughter of the charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, with no inconsiderable charisma of her own, driven, talented, distinguished, the career of Pakistan’s best-loved political leader had been cut short by unknown assassins. She was still young at 53.

Did Benazir Bhutto’s life have to end this way?

Benazir Bhutto had entered politics to ‘avenge’ her father’s hanging in April 1979 by Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s third military dictator. Having twice avenged her father’s murder – by assuming the office of Pakistan’s prime minister in April 1988 and October 1993 – she has now paid with her life trying to reach that office a third time.

Sadly, the truth is that her violent end could have been
foretold with near certainty. What are the circumstances that made her
violent end very nearly a certainty? She did not have the military
security – and luck, one must add – that has shielded General Parvez
Musharraf from several assassination attempts. With some expense and
planning, Benazir Bhutto too could have made better security
arrangements, but, fatefully, she seemed to be in too much of a haste
to be slowed down even by 150 deaths during the first attack on her
life in Karachi.

Immediately after her death, a spokesman for
Al-Qa’ida operations in Afghanistan claimed that this was their work.
”We terminated,” the spokesman claimed ominously, “the most precious
American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen.”1

That
Benazir Bhutto was a ‘precious American asset’ – perhaps, even the
‘most precious’ – few anywhere would deny, least of all the Americans.
It is widely known that her return to Pakistan was brokered by the
United States. She could return to Pakistan’s politics – and, most
likely, to the prime minister’s office – by dropping her opposition to
another term of five years for President Musharraf. Indeed, Benazir
Bhutto instructed the members of her party not to resign from their
seats in the national assembly but abstain from voting. This defeated
the opposition’s plan to deny the quorum necessary for the deeply
flawed presidential elections.

One of the most remarkable
developments in Pakistani politics since the events of 9-11 is the
transparency – shall we say, daring – with which the United States now
intervenes in Pakistan’s affairs. Conversely, Pakistani leaders also
work openly to advance American interests in Pakistan. In an earlier
era, the Americans generally took care to conceal their meddling in
Pakistani politics. As a result, only the politically astute understood
the depth of their influence over Pakistan. Now, this knowledge has
become commonplace.

Although greatly weakened since the protests
that erupted over his firing of Pakistan’s Chief Justice in March 2007,
the Americans believe that General Parvez Musharraf is still the best
person to lead their war against the militants in Pakistan. However,
they were now convinced that the General’s badly battered reputation
had to be salvaged: and a partnership with the pro-American Benazir
Bhutto would do just that. In turn, the General, under duress, had
accepted a partnership with Bhutto as the price he must pay or lose US
support.

A tripartite deal was brokered involving the US,
General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. This deal freed Bhutto from the
corruption cases pending against her in Pakistani courts. She was also
allowed to return to Pakistan to lead her party to – she was convinced
– a nearly certain electoral victory: and a third term as Pakistan’s
prime minister. The elections would give the General the democratic
veneer that he now so badly needed.

As the New York Times
reveals in a recent article, “How Bhutto won Washington,” Benazir
Bhutto’s deal-making with the Americans has a long history.2 She had
decided quite early that she would return her party to power by
trolling the corridors of power in Washington.

In the words of
her friend from Oxford days, Peter Galbraith, who was on the staff of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, Benazir Bhutto
first began her campaign in Washington in the spring of 1984. She was
on a mission to persuade the Reagan administration that “she would much
better serve American interest in Afghanistan than Zia.” Under the
tutelage of Galbraith and his friend, Mark Siegel – formerly executive
director of the Democratic National Convention – she cultivated the
friendship of important power brokers in Washington.

These
Washington contacts paid off handsomely. In the parliamentary elections
of November 1988 Benazir Bhutto’s party gained only a plurality of
seats. Since Pakistan’s military establishment looked upon her with
considerable distrust, they could easily have pulled strings to deny
her the right to form the government. US pressure, however, persuaded
Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the President at the time, to invite Benazir Bhutto
to form the government.

Benazir Bhutto never gave up on this
winning strategy. As the NYT writes, “she kept up her visits to
Washington, usually several a year.” She continued to cultivate friends
amongst the Washington elite, including the Congress and the media. In
the first six months of 2007 alone, Benazir Bhutto spent $250,000 in
lobbying fees to gain access to Washington insiders.

Once again,
to win American backing for her return to Pakistan in 2007, which could
only happen with US pressure on General Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto used
the same strategy that had worked before: she would promise to do
better than General Musharraf in advancing American interests in
Pakistan.

Over the past year, Benazir Bhutto has repeatedly
pointed out that General Musharraf’s war against terrorism in Pakistan
was failing. Instead of curbing terrorism, the militants had become
more daring during the General’s tenure. She promised to do better. She
would wipe out the “religious extremists,” shut down “extremist”
madrasas, and even hand over Dr. Qadeer Khan – the architect of
Pakistan’s nuclear program – to the US for questioning. Insistently,
and loudly, Benazir Bhutto was seeking to assure the United States that
she would do a lot better than their General.

This strategy won
her the support of the United States, but it was fatally flawed. If
Musharraf had not acted more vigorously against the militants that was
not because he had gone soft in his commitment to America's plan.
Instead, it was because he faces restraints on three fronts: the
opposition within the army, especially from its lower ranks; the very
real fear that stronger measures against the militants would provoke a
domestic outcry and, worse, a more determined response from those
militants; and, there are concerns too that defeating the Taliban would
entrench Indian influence over Afghanistan. Would these constraints be
any different for Benazir Bhutto?

In presenting herself as the
only Pakistani politician to openly challenge the militants, wasn’t
Benazir Bhutto – in effect – also daring them to target her? Since
these Islamists were regularly targeting the Pakistan military itself –
even inside the security of their cantonments – would they hold back
from attacking a politician who threatened to take even stronger
actions against them than General Musharraf?

General Musharraf’s
decision to make Pakistan the leading partner in America's war against
terrorism had already revealed its deep flaws. Most ominously, it had
provoked the Islamists into targeting the Pakistani military. Already
there were defections from the army, and if the clashes continued,
there could be rebellion in the ranks of the army: or clashes between
Pukhtoons and the Punjabis within the army.

In pushing Benazir
Bhutto into this dangerous corner, a corner in which she could not have
survived, the US too has shown its gross ineptitude. By openly
anointing her as the American candidate, the US had effectively
hastened the violent end that she has now met. The US helped to bring
about the untimely death of the ‘Daughter of the East’ by transforming
her into the ‘Daughter of the West.’ In the process, Pakistan too has
lost a flawed but charismatic leader, who might have risen to the
occasion at a time of crisis.

Benazir Bhutto crafted her
political career by embracing her father’s populism, but decisively
rejected what was its natural complement: his independent foreign
policy. Could she have followed a different path? Was she free to claim
the legacy of her father’s independent foreign policy?

Benazir
Bhutto’s embrace of her father’s populism was indispensable: without
it, she could not lay claim to his charismatic following amongst
Pakistan’s largely illiterate masses. On the other hand, by rejecting
an independent foreign policy, she opened a path to the centers of
American power without losing any of her popularity. The mostly poor
and illiterate Pakistanis could not have cared much for the arcana of
foreign politics.

Benazir Bhutto saw her courting of the US as
necessary to her ascent to power? The Americans have long cultivated
Pakistan’s military as the best vehicle for subordinating Pakistan to
its ends: first, Pakistan’s military became a US partner in the Cold
War, and since 9-11 it has been drafted as a leading ally in the
‘global war against terror.’ The 1990s – the interim between the two
wars – was a window of opportunity for Pakistan’s politicians.

But
Benazir Bhutto first had to neutralize the Pakistani generals – whose
power had been challenged only once by her father, and, who, therefore,
were opposed to the return of his populist party to power. She had used
this strategy to neutralize Pakistan’s military establishment before.
Now, with the generals in trouble, she struck the same bargain.

Tragically,
this time, it was fatal mistake. Benazir Bhutto was binding herself to
a strategy – waging America's war against the militants – that had
already pushed Pakistan to the brink of a civil war and disintegration.
In her impetuous quest for power, she had acted in blind disregard of
realities.

But did Benazir Bhutto have an alternative?

Perhaps
she did. Pakistan has a chance of averting a civil war, but only by
distancing itself from the United States. This distancing is now vital
for Pakistan: and one could argue, for the United States too. Only by
distancing itself from the United States does any Pakistani government
now have a chance of preventing the militants from overwhelming
Pakistan itself. No government that cleaves to the United States and
Israel has a chance of winning popular support in its efforts to
contain the spread of the Islamist insurgency. Sadly, Benazir Bhutto
too – like Musharraf – has cultivated the Israeli lobby in the United
States.3

It is perhaps unrealistic to expect that Benazir
Bhutto, had she had wanted to, could have done this on her own.
However, if she had joined a pro-democracy and nationalist partnership
with Nawaz Sharif – and perhaps some of the other parties in the
opposition – together they had a fair chance of sending the Pakistani
generals back to the barracks. It would not take Hazrat ‘Ali’s oratory
to convince the Pakistanis that this partnership – and an independent
foreign policy – were at this juncture indispensable for the integrity
of Pakistan.

Sadly, this was an option that Benazir Bhutto
rebuffed. She did not want to remove the generals: she sought to join
their fight against the Islamist militants as a civilian cheerleader.
Perhaps, she could not think of another option, given how much of her
political capital she had invested in gaining the support of the United
States. Trapped in her myopia, she saw this as the easier option, the
only option. Sadly, she had chosen to enter a blind alley. Worse: it
was a death trap.

That is what makes her death a Pakistani
tragedy. It is a tragedy because she was the only political figure in
Pakistan who commanded the charisma to try to galvanize Pakistanis into
a vital coalition that could reverse the damage done by the military
generals. But, instead, she chose to outdo the failed generals.

That
was Benazir Bhutto’s fatal flaw; but it was not only a personal flaw.
Behind this fatal flaw lay the a sad history of a country whose elites
time and again chose to prostitute the state, to compromise national
interests, and sacrifice the lives of Pakistanis for their personal
gains. That is what makes Benazir Bhutto’s murder a Pakistani tragedy.
In a single tragic event, it crystallizes the malfeasance of Pakistan’s
political classes and the failure of Pakistanis to bring them to
account for their treasonous crimes.

2. Elisabeth Bumiller, “How Bhutto won Washington,” New York Times (December 27, 2007).

3.
According to Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Benazir
Bhutto send him a copy of new autobiography, Daughter of Destiny,
including “a warm dedication to Israel.” He added, “ She {Benazir
Bhutto] wrote me of how she admired Israel and of her desire to see a
normalization in the relations between Israel and Pakistan, including
the establishment of diplomatic ties,…” Tali Rabinovsky, “Gillerman:
Bhutto told me she feared for her life,” (December 28, 2007).

M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University,
Boston. He is the author of Challenging the New Orientalism (North
Haledon, NJ: IPI, 2007). He may be reached at alqalam02760@yahoo.com.
He is the author of the book — Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on the "War Against Islam".
M. Shahid Alam's enterprise of forcing "the legacies of history" into
"the daylight of consciousness" in the West is informed by deep
understanding of the cultural and economic history of Islamic and
European societies, and of influential contemporary scholarship and
debate. The analysis is careful and serious, and will be of
considerable value to anyone concerned with the crucial and timely
issues that Alam addresses, whether they come to agree with his
conclusions or not.

Mr.
musharraf says that they will take the help of scottland police department. will they get the evidences as they r washed out immediately after the accident or will govt. allow to take out the body of benazir again for investigation